I. Artifact Name

Torn Little Girl's Dress from the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church


II. Image

4girls.jpg

III. Significance of Event

The Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham was used as a meeting-place for civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King, Ralph David Abernathy and Fred Shutterworth. Tensions became high when the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE) became involved in a campaign to register African American to vote in Birmingham.

On Sunday, 15th September, 1963, a white man was seen getting out of a white and turquoise Chevrolet car and placing a box under the steps of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. Soon afterwards, at 10.22 a.m., the bomb exploded killing Denise McNair (11), Addie Mae Collins (14), Carole Robertson (14) and Cynthia Wesley (14). The four girls had been attending Sunday school classes at the church. Twenty-three other people were also hurt by the blast.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAC16.htm


IV. Date and Place

Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama
Sunday, 15th September 1963



V. Multimedia Found on the Internet



VII. Map



VIII. Curators

Randy Millar
Kathi Whitfield